Wednesday, January 29, 2014

After all, whenever it gets up over a hundred here in NYC and things start to pop and break, inevitably there’s a story from down theyarrrr about how sissypanties New Yorkers are, and how Suthners can handle the heat.

So video of people being stuck in traffic for hours, even days, because of a dusting of snow should be enough for me to take a little snarky moment or two, right?

The problem is, of course, that for the grace of God go I. Much of the trouble is because cities and counties don’t buy salt because, you know, why would you? And they don’t have plows because who needs them?

And then I think: we’re just one real budget crisis – and one really bad winter – away from losing our plows and our salt supply. It could happen. Not likely, but it could. Already in the north, we’re seeing shortages of propane to rural communities because of the difficulty of getting trucks around in the terrible snowstorms and deeply frigid temperatures of the last month or so, doubly so as the frigid temperatures have thermostats working overtime. And all it took was one bus to have engine problems on a bridge to shut down an entire borough. It took hours, literally, to travel less than a mile over water.

It’s not fair for me to mock folks for panicking over an amount of snow that is about as high as the pile of confectioner’s sugar on a donut.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing